With the ever increasing popularity of the sport of snowboarding, a need exists for a user-friendly binding system that enables a novice snowboarder to readily adopt the sport without having extensive knowledge of boots and bindings and how they interrelate. An effective binding system must enable a snowboarder to quickly and easily engage and disengage his/her boot from a snowboard. A release mechanism is required that is convenient to operate so that a snowboarder can disengage his/her boot while mounting a chair lift or, in the event of a fall, release as necessary on a snowboard run, such as where the snowboarder requires release from the snowboard in deep snow. A snowboard binding system should be relatively lightweight, sturdy, adaptable to different size boots, rugged, capable of working under conditions where snow and ice may accumulate and must be operable by individuals with gloved hands.
Numerous patents have issued disclosing various types of snowboard bindings, such bindings capable of being categorized as being either toe-to-heel bindings, underfoot attachment bindings or side mounted bindings. Existing designs for toe-to-heel bindings fail to provide the side-to-side support desired by snowboarders, especially given the preferred positioning of a snowboarder's feet along a transverse angle from the longitudinal axis of the snowboard. The “board feel” experienced by snowboarders using a side mounted binding is believed to be superior to that experienced using a toe-to-heel binding. By gripping a snowboarder's boot along the lateral edges of a boot sole, rather than from the toe and heel of a boot, a reduction in the mechanical stresses on the snowboarder's anatomy is achieved since the lateral edges of a snowboarder's boot receive a greater amount of mechanical stress than those encountered at the toe and heel.
Several patents have issued relating to side boot-mounted bindings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,443 to Kincheloe discloses a binding in which a boot slides into engagement with a socket member that engages a boot plate underneath the boot sole. The necessity of slidably engaging a boot to a binding, however, presents difficulties in situations where a snowboarder is unable to readily move his/her boot in a manner allowing the boot to slide out of engagement.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,973,073 to Raines et al. describes a binding that relies upon a spring-loaded, cam operated latch on one side of a snowboard binding to secure a boot to a snowboard. Specially designed ridges on each side of a boot are gripped by a pair of opposed mating sockets on the surface of the snowboard, one of such sockets having a spring biased hooking lip rotatably mounted via downwardly projecting portions. The rotational motion of the hooking lip latches one of the ridge portions of the boot binding. A snowboarder is required to first insert a first binding ridge into a longitudinal socket defined by a first ridge entrapping member, and once seated in the socket, the snowboard rider angularly lowers the other side of the boot to allow a second binding ridge to slip downward past the rotating hooking lip. Raines et al.'s design thus requires the angular positioning of a snowboarder's boot to engage the binding and relies upon the rotational interaction of a boot ridge with a pivoting hooking lip.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,823 to Glaser describes the use of a boot plate engageable by a fixed jaw and an opposite slide jaw assembly. The slide jaw assembly engages edge portions of a boot plate and has three operating modes, adjusted by moving a cammed lever into either an engaging, locking or intermediate position. A rider first engages the fixed jaw side of the binding and then, with the cammed lever in a proper position, angularly engages the slide jaw so as to cause rotation about a center axis of a locking arm. A rotational force is exerted on the locking arm until a final locking position is achieved whereby the slide jaw housing snaps back to a position to engage the boot plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,508 to Spademan discloses a ski binding in which opposing pivotally mounted lever members are operated by depressing a heel-receiving member with the tip of a ski pole. By stepping into the bindings, the heel member opens a levered clamping mechanism until the ski boot is placed in the skiing position, at which time the clamping members are allowed to move to a closed position under a biased action of the levered clamping members.
Despite these prior designs, however, a need still exists for a relatively inexpensive, rugged and simple binding system that affords the user-friendliness demanded by novice snowboarders, as well as the ease of operation and superlative board-feel desired by experienced snowboarders. There is also a need for a boot that cooperates with a binding system in such a manner as to facilitate the increasingly demanding safety and performance characteristics desired by today's snowboarders.
Conventional snowboard boots have been generally of a soft shell design and snowboarders often utilize insulated boots such as Sorels™. The mechanical stresses encountered by a snowboarder in manipulating a snowboard, however, require certain aspects of a boot to be more rigid to provide support of various desired ankle and leg configurations. There is, therefore, a need for a snowboarding boot that is designed to cooperate with a side-mounted binding in such a way as to afford a snowboarder maximum support for safety reasons, as well as to enhance desired board-feel.